The present invention relates to a new and improved arrangement for counting and apportioning of uni-directionally arranged rod-shaped goods or articles to be packaged, in particular electrode rods. The apportioning is carried out by means of a light barrier arranged across the feed path of a conveyor belt which emits an adjustable number of counting pulses to thereby control the feeding of the electrode rods.
Counting and apportioning arrangements of the aforedescribed type belong to the state-of-the-art. In such devices the separation of the counted portions is effected by flap-like separating walls, which, when swung over guide the falling rods alternately into adjacently arranged receiving chambers. A drawback of this known arrangement resides in that the counting as well as separation of the portions of rods is effected during the falling motion of the material to be packaged. In this known arrangement, on the one hand, the time for adjusting the separating walls when the predetermined number of rods to be packaged has been attained, is very brief, and on the other hand, such arrangement does also not always insure that the rod-shaped goods or materials to be packaged are maintained parallel to the separating walls during their falling motion. As a result, such an arrangement frequently malfunctions and there is obtained an imprecise apportionment of the numbers or pieces of the rod-shaped material, with the result that the inaccurate packaging is associated with additional cost factors. Such general type of prior art apparatus has been previously disclosed.